“Don’t be such a—”
“—pussy? Yeah fine, I’m a pussy. Call me a fucking pussy for not wanting to go swimming in water that you just fucking threw rotting, maggot-filled squirrel corpses in.”
Ray looked at the squirrels then, but Drake couldn’t stomach the sight. He resigned himself to waiting for his friend to answer.
When he did, it was wholly unsatisfying.
“They were suffering, Drake. I put them—”
“Yeah, I get it—hello—they were suffering. But why don’t we just bury them, like your dad said. Shit, the Earth is probably suffering, too, all that goddamn acid rain and pollution. Let’s just bury them.”
Ray looked perplexed and chewed the inside of his lip.
“The Earth can’t suffer, Drake. Only things that can feel can suffer.”
Drake threw his arms up then, his frustration coming to a head.
“Holy shit, when did you become fucking Aristotle?”
Ray shrugged.
“There are turtles that live in the pond, and they’re suffering, too. What do you think happens when days go by and they can’t find any food in that murky water? What do you think they’re doing? Having a fucking party? They’re suffering. And these squirrels can feed them.”
Drake made the cartoon sound again and ground his teeth so tightly that his jaw started to ache.
“Fine. Do whatever you want, Ray. We know that you were going to, anyways. But I’m telling you, you put the squirrels in the pond and I’m not going swimming in there ever again. That’s a promise.”
And with that, Drake turned and headed down the dirt driveway.
“Where you going? Drake, where you going?” Ray hollered after him.
Drake just waved a hand behind him and didn’t look.
“Don’t go inside! Don’t go inside! Don’t bother my mom!”
Drake put a hand behind his back and raised his middle finger as he continued toward the farm.
Chapter 12
Drake stomped off with his head hung low, but as he neared the barn, a glimmer of reflected light caught his eye.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
Mr. Reynolds’s truck was parked in the driveway. Drake had never known John to be home early for dinner, let alone before noon. The man even worked weekends and holidays.
Remembering what had happened that morning with Angelina, Drake suddenly felt uncomfortable. He glanced back the way he had come, hoping to see Ray bounding through the woods. If he saw Ray, he thought he would go to him then, irrespective of what his plan was with the squirrels—short of eating them, of course. John was a nice enough man, but like Ray, he had started to change with Angelina’s deteriorating condition.
Last night had been somewhat of an anomaly; Mr. Reynolds’s demeanor had degenerated to something close to sullen apathy, and the normally gregarious man had become an introvert, not unlike his son.
But Ray was nowhere to be found, and the last thing Drake wanted to do was to head into the woods and risk being either spooked or accosted by the boy again.
Drake tucked his hands into his shorts pockets and hurried up to the truck. He was further surprised to see that the door was slightly ajar and the dome light was still on. Drake looked around as he approached, trying to see if John was nearby, thinking that maybe the man had forgotten something for work and had just popped inside.
But Drake didn’t see him anywhere.
Noting that the keys weren’t in the ignition, he shut the truck door. As soon as it clicked closed, he heard a voice from somewhere behind him.
“Come here a second, Drake.”
Drake turned to see John standing in the doorway of the barn. The man’s eyes were red, and his nose was dripping.
He had clearly been crying.
“Is everything okay?” Drake asked.
John tilted his head and asked Drake to come to him a second time.
Drake’s eyes drifted to Mr. Reynolds’s hand; the man’s calloused fingers were clutching the bottle of Ballantine’s.
“I didn’t—I mean… I didn’t have any,” he stammered.
A smirk found its way onto John’s face, and Drake was reminded of Ray’s expression back in the pond.
“I know you boys have a little now and then, it’s no big deal. I did much worse when I was a kid.”
Drake was about to deny this again, but he knew that his efforts would just be wasted. It was clear that John had made up his mind already, and at this point, it didn’t matter whether they had or hadn’t.
John unscrewed the cap and held the bottle out to Drake.
“You want some? Come on, you can have some.”
Drake hesitantly took a few steps forward, staring at the man as he did, trying to gauge his intentions.
As he approached, Drake could smell the stench of alcohol coming off of Mr. Reynolds in waves. He and Ray couldn’t have been gone for more than ten minutes, which meant that John had either been pounding that bottle of Ballantine’s or he had started earlier.
“Ray’s just getting rid of the squirrels, like you said.”
Drake slowed even further, trying to piece together exactly what was going on. And as he did, the jovial expression on John’s face suddenly changed.
And Drake didn’t like this change. He looked… mean.
“I’m not talking to Ray,” the man said, his voice dropping an octave. “I’m talking to you, boy.”
Drake stopped completely.
“That’s all right, Mr. Reynolds,” Drake said. “I don’t want any.”
“I think you should have some anyway,” John said with a sneer.
Drake didn’t much care for the man’s tone, didn’t care for any of this, in fact.
“I’m fine, Mr. Reynolds,” he said, trying to stop his lower lip from trembling. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and started to turn in that direction.
“I’m gonna—”
“No, I think you’re going to stay with me,” John said. Before Drake could reply, the man leaned away from the barn door, and this was the first time that Drake saw that his other hand, his left hand, was wrapped around the barrel of the BB gun. “I think you’re going to come with me and do exactly what I say.”
Chapter 13
Drake’s mouth was suddenly very dry and he tensed, preparing to run. He wasn’t sure what John was planning to do and didn’t know how accurate he was with a BB gun, but there was no way in hell he was going into that barn.
“Don’t be scared,” John said, slowly raising the gun. “Ray said you were a pussy, but he was scared, too, at first—”
“Dad? What are you doing home?”
Drake whipped around to see Ray approaching, shovel in hand. When he turned back to face John, the man had lowered the gun to the ground.
“Took the day off today, thought maybe I could teach you guys to shoot.” He raised the bottle of Ballantine’s to Ray, who looked at it with a curious expression. “You want a drink?”
Ray put the shovel back in the garage.
“No, I’m okay,” he said.
John shrugged and took a sip of scotch. Then he set it on the ground and raised the gun. Drake instinctively flinched, but instead of aiming at him as he thought he might, John cracked the barrel.
“Not loaded. Ray, will you get the BBs from the shelf?” John asked, keeping his eyes locked on Drake as he spoke.
“Sure,” Ray replied, and moved to the workbench at the back of the barn.
John didn’t say anything during this time, and neither did Drake.
I imagined it. He’s just drunk and I imagined it.
“Got them,” Ray said, shaking the box of BBs.
“Good,” John replied, tucking the rifle under his arm. “Now boys, today I’m going to turn you both into men.”
***
“In the Army, they tell you to wait between heartbeats to shoot. But here, the only thing you have to do is be quiet, be still, and be confident,” John said as he brought
the gun to his chin. The three of them were lying on the grass just by the edge of the forest. John had the barrel trained on a small group of grazing rabbits.
There were four of them, three large ones, their hair the color of straw, and one smaller rabbit that was nearly white.
Drake didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be here any more than he wanted to go into the barn with John, or listen to Angelina’s breathing apparatus for another night.
What he wanted was to be home with his brother and dad.
Drake glanced over at John, who was squinting with one eye and looking down the barrel with the other. His mouth was open slightly and Drake could hear him breathing softly.
Please miss, Drake thought.
Just as John’s finger tensed on the trigger, he unexpectedly pulled the gun away from his face and pointed the butt at Drake.
“You take the shot, Drake.”
Drake shook his head.
“No, I’m okay.”
John smirked.
“Come on, take the shot. I’ll make a man of you yet.”
Drake swallowed hard and shook his head again.
John’s smirk became a grimace and he aggressively swiveled the gun to Ray next.
“Fine. Ray, you do it.”
Ray didn’t hesitate. He took the gun, put the butt against his shoulder, and took aim.
Like his father, Ray closed one eye, but instead of his mouth hanging open, he pressed his lips together tightly. Even with the gun stock blocking most of his face, Drake was again taken by Ray’s strange expression.
An expression that he was becoming familiar with, and it was one that he had quickly grown to dislike.
Drake leaned close to his friend and whispered what he hoped was just loud enough for him to hear.
“Don’t do it, Ray. Please, come on, don’t do it.”
Ray ignored him.
“Ray, come on.”
Drake spoke a little louder this time and John glared at him.
A split second before Ray pulled the trigger, Drake leaned in close and said, “Ray, you don’t have to do this.”
The shot rang out and the rabbits scattered.
“Fuck,” John swore, still glaring at Drake. “You missed.”
Relief washed over him. But as he watched the rabbits scamper away, Drake realized that the fourth, the smaller one, was struggling to keep up with the others.
“Or… maybe not,” John offered.
Drake looked over at Ray and was surprised by his angry expression.
“You made me miss,” he said.
John got to his feet and ran towards the wounded animal.
“You didn’t miss, not completely,” he said, sounding almost giddy.
Ray cracked the gun barrel and hurried after his father, and Drake followed.
The BB had struck the small rabbit just above the rear leg. While initially it had scattered with the sound of the shot, it had slowed by the time John got to it. When Drake arrived, the rabbit was hopping in a small circle on one leg. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the wound, and there was a strange hissing sound coming from the hole.
“I would’ve got him in the head,” Ray said quietly.
Drake watched in horror as the rabbit’s movements stopped entirely and it collapsed onto one side. The hissing sound, he realized, was air coming from its punctured lung.
John took three steps to his right and grabbed a rock roughly the size of a softball from the grass.
Shit, I can’t watch, Drake thought. I can’t watch this.
He squeezed his eyes tight, but didn’t hear a grunt of exertion, the crack of a skull.
Drake opened one eye and realized that both Ray and John were staring at him.
“You do it,” John said, holding the rock out to him.
“W-w-what?” Drake stammered.
“You do it,” John reiterated. “You made this mess, you put the rabbit out of its misery. End its suffering.”
Drake felt sweat break out on his brow and he looked to his friend for support. Ray’s face was blank.
“No, no way—I’m not going to do that.”
Drake took a step backward as he spoke, but John followed his movements. He thought about running again, but just as the idea formulated in his mind, John reached out and grabbed his hand. He squeezed his fingers so tightly that they went white.
Then he slammed the rock against his palm.
“You made the mess, so you do it,” John ordered, his eyes red and raw. “You can use the rock or the gun. Your choice.”
“No, I won’t,” Drake said, trying to drop the stone. John squeezed his hand so tight that he was unable to. “Let go of me.”
“Do it, Drake. Put the animal out of his misery,” Ray pleaded. Now he looked scared, too. “Just do as he says.”
Drake shook his head and tried to pull away, but John’s grip was like a vice.
“No, I won’t do it. I won’t. This is crazy. Let me go.”
But John wouldn’t let him go. He yanked Drake’s arm so hard, that he almost fell on top of the dying rabbit.
Drake lost it.
“Stop!” He shouted. “Leave me alone! I want to go home!”
Tears started to stream down his cheeks.
“I’ll do it,” Ray said quietly, but John didn’t seem to hear. “Dad, let him go, I said I’ll do it.”
“Do it, boy, I’ll make a man out of you, yet,” John hissed so close to Drake that his sour, alcohol breath made him gag.
“Let me,” Ray repeated. He gently reached out and put a hand on his father’s shoulder. John suddenly released his grip on Drake, and he dropped the rock.
As Drake stepped back, Ray quickly reached down and picked up the rock. Drake’s vision was so blurry from sobbing, that he barely recognized his friend as he raised the rock high above his head.
This time when Drake closed his eyes, he heard a whoosh of air, followed by a sickening, wet thud.
Chapter 14
This time, Drake didn’t eat anything at all for dinner.
Even John Reynolds’s appetite, previously insatiable, seemed to have dampened, and he spent most of the time chasing peas around his plate and sipping beer. Only Ray seemed unaffected by the day’s events and ate with his typical enthusiasm.
Drake had phoned his father immediately after getting back to the farm, but to his dismay, the man was tied up with work and couldn’t come until the weekend. Which meant that Drake was stuck with the Reynolds for at least two more days. His intention had been to tell his dad everything, but when he put the phone to his ear, he was at a loss for words.
What exactly did happen? he wondered. The problem lay in the fact that when he tried to verbalize the day’s events, they didn’t really seem all that strange. Sure, Mr. Reynolds had offered him a drink and had taken him hunting for rabbit even though Drake wasn’t keen. And then, when they had winged the animal, it was only normal, empathetic, even, to put it out of its misery.
He could almost hear his dad’s voice in his head.
I thought that’s why you liked going up there to the farm? To get out of the city and do outdoorsy stuff.
And at face value, that was exactly what had happened.
Only it was more than that.
It was the pervasive feeling underlying the actual activities, the sense of dread that gripped Drake’s insides as if his ribs were suddenly too small to contain his organs.
He couldn’t exactly say that to his father, though. The man would probably laugh at him, tell him that he was being silly, all the while thinking that Drake should be more like his brother.
In the end, Drake had settled on telling his father that he wasn’t feeling well, which, based on the perpetual knot that gripped his stomach, wasn’t a lie, not really.
Drake heard an audible click, followed by a whoosh from upstairs. Only this time, he thought he heard something else, too, a sound between the cycles of forced air.
A moan. Soft, mewing, but also ha
unting.
Thinking that he had just imagined it, Drake blocked out the sound of Mr. Reynolds’s fork scraping across his plate and listened again.
There. There it is.
He glanced over at Ray and noticed that his friend had stopped mid-chew.
He heard it, too.
During the next cycle, the moan was louder and impossible to ignore this time.
“It’s nothing,” John said, his words slurred. “Doctor says that she’s jes trying to empty her lungs.”
It didn’t sound to Drake like she was trying to empty her lungs. It sounded to Drake like Angelina Reynolds was in intense pain.
“She’s suffering,” Ray whispered under his breath.
“What?” John snapped.
Ray lowered his gaze and shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Just leave her alone. I don’t want you boys messing around with her. She needs her sleep.”
John, visibly upset now, took his plate to the sink and tossed it in. Then he walked over to the family room and switched on the TV without saying another word.
Even with the baseball game on in the background, Drake could still clearly hear the sequence of sounds: click, whoosh, moan.
And every time he heard the whoosh, knowing what would follow, his entire body clenched.
Although he wasn’t hungry, Drake found himself dehydrated and his mouth was parched. He also needed to do something to occupy his time and his mind. Drake downed an entire glass of water in just three gulps. When he was done, he looked at Ray and opened his mouth to say something, only to quickly close it again.
For once, Drake had no idea what to say.
Instead, he stood and walked his plate over to the counter and said it down gently.
Making his way back to the table, he finally found his tongue.
“I think I’m just going to go to bed,” he told Ray in a soft voice.
He expected his friend to complain, to comment that it wasn’t even eight yet, maybe even call him a pussy again, but he didn’t. And this was somehow worse. Ray just nodded and went back to finishing his meal.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Page 5
